Whose city is it anyway? Co-creating smart cities with citizens

Leaders always say that the aim of smart cities is to benefit citizens, but this doesn’t seem to be reflected in their actions yet – at least not at scale. In a recent survey by SmartCitiesWorld, less than a fifth of cities said they ask citizens what should be prioritised.

As urbanisation and its challenges increase and public sector funding flatlines or falls, we have to find new ways to deliver and procure city services – and citizens have to be at the centre of that if smart cities are to deliver on their promise of improving quality of life.

Authorities and the private sector must also demystify smart cities and address societal concerns about a dystopian future – or risk a backlash.

This event, complete with panel debates and roundtable discussions, will help leaders from cities, local & regional government share knowledge and experiences, gather new ideas and find more clarity about the way ahead.

We’ll cover a vast array of public services including transport, waste & recycling, buildings, air quality, parks and even lamp posts.

Register Here to join other delegates from government and the infrastructure industry for practical insights and solutions to help deliver smart infrastructure solutions.

Attendance is free however all applications will need to be approved by the curator for this event to ensure we have a balance audience.

Agenda for the Day: 19 June 2019

11.30 – 12.00: Registration, coffee & networking

12.00 – 12.10: Welcome & research findings - SmartCitiesWorld

12.10 - 12.35: Opening Keynote - Amey

12:40 - 13:20: Building smart cities from the ground up – methods of engaging citizens

13.20 – 14.20: Lunch and roundtables

14.20 - 15.10: Methods of Engagement (continued)

15.10 - 16.15: Data-driven citizen engagement, including panel debate

16.15 – 17.10: Citizens as agents of change, including panel debate

17.10 – 18.30: Closing Remarks, Drinks Reception overlooking the City of London

Venue: 58VE, 58 Victoria Embankment, Temple, London EC4Y 0DS

12.00 – 12.35pm: Introduction, Research Results & Keynote

Sarah Wray, Editor of SmartCitiesWorld, will be our host for the afternoon and will introduce our keynote and present SmartCitiesWorld's latest research.

The research gauges feedback from both local/regional authorities on how well they feel they are progressing with engaging citizens in smart city initiatives, the challenges they face and the results they have seen so far. We will then allow the audience to discuss any of the issues that arise from this research. A summary of the results will be available for delegates to take home.

Our keynote, David Ogden, Amey will share his thoughts on rethinking procurement and how citizen-focused, outcome-based procurement could deliver better services, more cost-effectively.

Building smart cities from the ground up – methods of engaging citizens

Local authorities have often struggled to measure citizen feedback on a big enough scale to make informed decisions. This can lead to decision-makers within local/regional authorities focusing on ill-informed prioritises or not making as much impact as they could.

We discuss the different methods of engaging citizens and which methods best suit which purposes.

13.20 – 14.20pm: Lunch & Roundtable Discussions

We will be running a number of roundtables during lunch. These roundtables will follow the three key themes of the afternoon and will see writing on the walls of the venue.

Delegates will be free to join any of the informal roundtable discussions - which will be curated by SmartCitiesWorld editors.

Data governance: The emerging role of data trusts

Data is fundamental to smarter cities but as more sensors are deployed in public spaces, concerns about data governance are increasing.

What happens to all the data collected through these sensors? Who controls it and what further benefit do citizens get, given they’re intimately involved in the creation of this data?

Jorge Tintoré, Projects Director, Centre of Excellence for Cities at Ferrovial Services, will bring us some of his experiences working in Madrid. He will talk through Citizéntrica and how the City of Madrid, working with Ferrovial Services Centre of Excellence for Cities, is making the city cleaner using citizen input, data analytics and new robotic technology. The starting point was understanding the citizens’ perspective.

Priya Prakash, Founder at Design for Social Change (D4SC) will talk about improving public infrastructure planning and development in real time, by combining big data with active citizen engagement. D4SC’s Changify and Citizen Canvas platforms have been piloted in UK, Europe and beyond

We'll also hear from Peter Wells, Head of Policy at the Open Data Institute (ODI)

Citizens as agents of change:

Learn from Zoe Bank Gross, Community Engagement Manager, Knowle West Media Centre, Bristol on how The Bristol Approach, including Citizen Sensing, helps the City of Bristol take a people-led rather than a technology-led approach to city innovation.

The Bristol Approach provides a set of tools and a way of working that helps different groups – from councils and businesses, to schools and community organisations – to tackle the pressing issues in their community.

Citizen Sensing is about empowering people and places to understand and use smart tech and data from sensors to tackle the issues they care about, connect with other people who can help, and take positive, practical action.

We'll also hear from Felicity Algate: Director, Behavioural Insights Team UK:North on how ‘nudging’ can encourage and enable citizens to play an active role in improving their city?

Keynote

Name: David Ogden

Title: Business Director

Company: Amey

Biography:

David is a Fellow of the CIHT with a strong interest in introducing new ways of delivering highways services across the UK.

David gained a wide variety of experience before joining Amey, applying his knowledge of other industries to the Highways business unit. Starting his career in commercial disciplines before moving into operational and general management, he has worked across the construction, utilities and highways sectors. David’s collaborative approach means he often leads cross-sector projects at Amey, including being the Highways lead on Amey’s Smart Mobility group. Working with colleagues across Amey, Ferrovial and industry partners, the Smart Mobility group is focused on implementing innovative and disruptive technologies, and exploring how future mobility choices will affect our transport infrastructure now and in the future.

Panellist

Name: Susanne Jameson

Title: Head of Creative Economy

Company: City of Liverpool

Biography:

Suzanne Jameson is Lead for Liverpool participation in the Horizon 2020 SC5 Climate area Project ROCK (Cultural Heritage Leading Urban Futures).

Based at Liverpool City Council Suzanne brings an extensive background in business-led development from both public and private sector with senior positions across technology corporates and as development executive within Big 5 Consultancy Firm (Public Private Partnerships / Capital Markets / Project Finance).

Since 2001 she has been focused on delivery of economic development, inward investment across both Creative Industries and wider innovation and knowledge economy sectors (Delivering Smart Specialisation £130m GBP Innovation programme in Merseyside), and in Regional Government at NWDA working on MediaCityUK the largest digital infrastructure project in Europe. She was a UK Government advisory member of the Creative Industries UK Regions and Nations Group between 2009-2011 (which advised on initial set up of TechCity London, and has contributed to creative and digital research projects with NESTA, Innovate and Tech North.

Panellist

Ben has been working with on the Olympic Park since 2011 and has been part of the London 2012 - Olympic & Paralympic Games & its Legacy.

Ben is responsible for the LLDC IT programme (Corporate & Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park) looking at its strategic development, IT framework and park operations.

Ben's priority is to make sure that this technology is firstly worthwhile, having some tangible benefit, but also that it’s not going be at the detriment of visitors to the park orlocal residents.

Panellist

Name: Konstantinos Champidis

Title:Chief Digital Officer

Company:City of Athens

Biography:

Konstantinos studied Mechanical Engineering at the National Technical University of Athens. From 2002 to 2004 he worked as an engineer in shipyards, while from 2004 to 2014 he worked as a consultant engineer. During the period 2010-2012 he actively participated in the development of Digital Agenda 2020 for Greece. From October 2014 until today, he is Executive Member of the Board of Directors of DAEM. From January 2015 to February 2017, he served as Administrator of the Mayor's Project Management Tool and advised him. Since February 2017 he is the first Chief Digital Officer of the City of Athens.

Panellist

Name: Felicity Algate

Title: Director

Company: Behavioural Insights Team UK:North

Biography:

Felicity is the head of BIT:North, based in Manchester which she founded in 2016. BIT:North works closely with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and Health & Social Care Partnership to apply behavioural insights across the Greater Manchester region. Felicity works on all areas of policy including health, tax collection, recycling, economic growth, early years and employment support.

Felicity joined the team in 2011 and since then she has designed and run more than 30 randomised controlled trials. She was responsible for co-designing the £30 million randomised controlled trial to evaluate the impact of the Growth Vouchers programme (the largest randomised controlled trial in the world by value). Felicity also helped set up the UK government’s ‘midata’ programme and co-authored ‘Applying behavioural insights to regulated markets’.

Panellist

Priya is founder of London-based award-winning Design for Social Change (D4SC). Her focus is improving public infrastructure planning and development in real time, by combining big data with active citizen engagement.

D4SC’s Changify and Citizen Canvas platforms have been piloted in UK and Europe with plans for rollout in SE Asia. She is on ‘Tech City Insider 100’, IBM’s ‘People for Smarter Cities’.

Before D4SC, Priya led the global design team as Head of Mobile Phone User Experience at Nokia. At the BBC, she was lead-designer and co-inventor of iPlayer with joint patents.

Panellist

Name: Zoe Bank Gross

Title: Community Engagement Manager

Organisation: Knowle West Media Centre, Bristol

Biography:

Zoe ensures that KWMC’s programme of work has excellent engagement with local communities, and that its activities promote digital and social inclusion. She works closely with city and national partners to connect the programme to wider initiatives.

Zoe has a strong background in environmental science, community development and sport. She is interested making her neighbourhood, and the world, step by step, a better place to live in. Her professional experience in the US, Germany, and the UK includes public and private sector experience, and most recently been working in the not-for profit sector.

Panellist

Name: Jorge Tintoré (or Jordi)

Title: Projects Director, Centre of Excellence for Cities

Company: Ferrovial Services

Biography:

Jordi has a degree in Industrial Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (Spain) and PDD from IESE and IE. With more than 21 years of experience in environmental services, he joined Ferrovial Services in 1999 in the environmental area and he has worked in various positions as Head of the Bidding department and as Regional Director of business units. In 2013, he joined the Centre of Excellence for Cities as Projects Director, leading the I+D department.

Panellist

Name: Tiernan Mines

Title: Co-Founder & CEO

Organisation:Hello Lamp Post

Biography:

Hello Lamp Post’s vision is to bridge the gap between city and citizen, and enable true co-creation of cities.

Details on Tiernan to follow.

Panellist

Name: Peter Wells

Title: Head of Policy

Organisation: Open Data Institute (ODI)

Biography:

Peter has spent the last 3 years mostly doing data and technology policy. First with the UK Labour Party and then with the Open Data Institute.

Previous history includes 20 years experience in the tech and telecoms sector covering pre-sales, consultancy and operational roles.

Chairperson

Name: Sarah Wray

Title: Editor

Company: SmartCitiesWorld

Biography:

Sarah has many years of experience as a B2B journalist and editor, specialising in technological innovation and its impact in cities.